Map range setting for PM

[BrunoBL]

Hello Pete and all,

I am using FSUIPC with Project Magenta and a Hagstrom Electronics keyboard encoder. At this stage I can retract or extend FS's landing gear with a "real-world" gear lever, and I wrote a Delphi program to get FS's wheel position and light up external wheel in-transit or down-and-locked lights. To boot, the program calls out "1000, 500, 400..." etc during approach. Neat.

Now I plan to read (with Hagstrom's KE72) the individual positions of rotary switches and send them to FSUIPC as key presses for various uses, one of which is the setting the ND map range.

From PM's manual I learned that there is no discrete keypress for the two extreme Boeing ND map range settings (5NM and 640NM) although PM does support individual key presses for all other map ranges (10, 20, 40, 80, 160 and 320NM).

I questioned the PM team about this and they confirmed that indeed there is no direct keypress for the 5NM and 640NM ranges, but they also said they may set by parameter with FSUIPC and the PM offsets. Looking at their documantation, I find this reference:

"4F8 ND Map Range / Scale 0 = 5 1 = 10, 2 = 20, 3 = 40(Read/Write)"

But... I cannot imagine how to use PM offsets from FSUIPC. Worse, I don't know how to uses the parameter feature in FSUIPC. I must be searching in the wrong places, because I could not find anything related to this in the documentation.

So... how can I make FSUIPC talk to PM's offsets and thus select the 5NM and 640NM ranges in the ND map using discrete keypresses from the keyboard encoder?

Any help would be, of course, very welcome.

Thanks for your patience,

Bruno.

[Pete Dowson]

From PM's manual I learned that there is no discrete keypress for the two extreme Boeing ND map range settings (5NM and 640NM) although PM does support individual key presses for all other map ranges (10, 20, 40, 80, 160 and 320NM).

Not sure that using keypresses is a good way in any case. FSUIPC does supply PM controls which operate through PM's offsets. You would probably be better off using those rather than keypresses directly. They will then work no matter where in the Network things are placed. You can program them in FSUIPC's Keys page.

Looking at their documantation, I find this reference:

"4F8 ND Map Range / Scale 0 = 5 1 = 10, 2 = 20, 3 = 40(Read/Write)"

But... I cannot imagine how to use PM offsets from FSUIPC. Worse, I don't know how to uses the parameter feature in FSUIPC. I must be searching in the wrong places, because I could not find anything related to this in the documentation.

There's plenty on this in the User guide, even an example of using the parameter facility in an FS control to set the standard pressure setting for the altimeter. How did you miss that?

There is no direct PM control programmed into FSUIPC for offset 04F8. You can use that but you would need to use the Offset Word Set control. When you select this control in FSUIPC's drop down list you will find you can set both the offset AND the value (parameter) to be written.

The Offset controls are referred to in the documentation in both the Buttons and Keys programming section, but the fuller section is under Buttons. Cross-references are also provided. I'm surprised you missed all of it.

However, probably easier than setting offset 04F8 directly, you could use the PM GC controls (by param) facility instead. This most certainly does include parameters for the whole ND Map range, including 5nm and 640nm. Details of the values are actually given in the PM FSUIPC offsets documentation on the PM site, and mostly reproduced (though probably out of date) in the FSUIPC Advanced User's Guide.

Regards,

Pete

[BrunoBL]

Pete,

Finally I found (thanks to your indication!) reference to control 2999

in the advanced users guide (under Project Magenta Controls). It mentions, amongst others, parameter 40 for a 5NM range, and 47 for 640NM.

At first I thought of using a "set" for the ND map range in the control pulldown menu in the FSUIPC keys tab (and pass the 40 and 47 parameter), but there were only Inc and Dec commands or discrete values from 10 to 320. So I included the following in the FSUIPC.INI keys section (assuming, for instance, a "T" key for 5NM range and "U" for 640NM):

[keys]

...

5=84, 8, 2999, 40

6=85, 8, 2999, 47

The above worked and now it is just a matter of generating the required characters with the KE72 keyboard encoder.

Thanks again for the precious information and for bearing with yet another user with more of the same questions.

Best regards from Brazil,

Bruno.

[Pete Dowson]

So I included the following in the FSUIPC.INI keys section (assuming, for instance, a "T" key for 5NM range and "U" for 640NM):

[keys]

...

5=84, 8, 2999, 40

6=85, 8, 2999, 47

The above worked

Fine but please note that you can do all this stuff through the FSUIPC options dialogue inside FS. It should be far easier! You don't need to know the control number (2999) nor the keypress codes, only the parameters needed -- and for those the best, most up-to-date, reference will be the PM FSUIPC offsets documentation provided by the PM site.

Regards,

Pete

[BrunoBL]

Sidenote: I evidently failed do intrerpret correctly your explanation. After editing FSUIPC.INI (with the working example as in the previous post) I went back to FSUIPC from inside FS, only to find the "PM GC controls (by param)" facility, just as you described. I was looking for (gues what?) the wrong entry, under "PM ND Range". All cleared up now.

Best regards,

Bruno.